A world-renowned anonymous graffiti artist has surprised Palestinians by opening a 10-room “Walled Off Hotel” in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, drawing attention to the bitter realities of life within the illegal “apartheid wall.”

The UK-based artist, known by the pseudonym “Banksy,” opened the three-storey hotel on Friday, coinciding with the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, by which the then British government endorsed the illegal establishment of the Israeli regime on the Palestinian territory.

So long as Israel treats the Palestinians this way there will never be any peace not in Israel not in the World. Palestinians have no hope they need hope to move forward. When will the World powers stand up to Israel?

The Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has unveiled plans to censor the Internet’s worldwide social media platforms with the building of an “international coalition” to counter criticism of Israel.

According to an article in the Times of Israel, Erdan’s plan calls for “developing legislation in conjunction with European countries,” most of which “are very interested in this idea.”

The legislation would have common features, such as defining what constitutes incitement and what the responsibilities of social networks regarding it are, a spokesman for the minister told the Israeli-based newspaper.

“Companies that do not comply will find themselves hauled into court, paying a penalty,” he added.

According to the plan, the participating countries would be part of a “loose coalition that would keep an eye on content and where it was being posted, and members of the coalition would work to demand that the platforms remove the content that was posted in any of their countries at the request of members.”
Read more at newobserveronline.com

There is a reason for criticism. It means some people are not happy with what you are doing.

The Israeli justice minister said in an interview that European leaders who criticize Israel are being anti-Semitic, just like their predecessors.

Criticizing the state of Israel and its government in any form is the new anti-Semitism, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday, accusing European leaders of replacing old anti-Semitic tendencies with a new format.

“In the past, we saw European leaders speaking against the Jews. Now, we see them speaking against Israel. It is the same anti-Semitism of blood libels, spreading lies, distorting reality and brainwashing people into hating Israel and the Jews,” Shaked said in an interview with The Washington Post.

European leaders have also expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which according to her also constitutes anti-Semitism.

BDS supporters in Europe and elsewhere are “using the same kind of anti-Semitism but instead of saying they are against the Jews, they say they are against Israel.”

France has intensified its war on free speech this week by arresting a woman for wearing a T-shirt that criticised Israel by promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in support of Palestine.

The woman was taking part in a march for International Women’s Day in Paris on Sunday, when undercover police grabbed her and detained her for wearing the ‘illegal’ t-shirt that had the words “Boycott Apartheid Israel” printed on it.

BDS eventually worked on South Africa. The indigenous people were supressed by the white Europeans who had gradually taken over the country from about 1650. The whites ruled over the blacks and eventually brought about apartheid. In the 1980s, the anti-apartheid movements in the United States and Europe were gaining support for boycotts against South Africa, and in the end the west helped end apartheid.

The suppression of the Palestinians has come to a very dire situation. They are oppressed, marginalised and treated as second class citizens. Segregated roads, buses, etc.
So why is it that if the same pressure is put on Israel to end its oppression of the Palestinians that it is labelled anti-Semite? Surely there are many similarities between South Africa and Israel. But instead of western countries supporting the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement they are now trying to make it illegal to criticise Israel.

Just this last week in France a woman was arrested for wearing a T-shirt printed with words ‘Boycott Apartheid Israel’ Why is Israel protected above all other countries?

Also Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said this last weekend that it is recommended in the Torah to kill the Palestinians.

If Israel ever manages to completely annihilate the Palestinians, will the western governments still not say a word against Israel?

SodaStream, the maker of fizzy drink machines, has confirmed that pressure from an international boycott campaign prompted it to withdraw from the occupied West Bank.

In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, SodaStream’s CEO Daniel Birnbaum said that his firm had planned to eventually close its factory in Mishor Adumim, an industrial park adjoining an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The shutdown was accelerated by pressure from the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, he confirmed.

“We didn’t leave Mishor Adumim because of BDS, we had a consolidation plan and we simply ran out of room for expansion there,” Birnbaum said. “However, if it wasn’t for BDS, we might have stayed there another year or two, so it did have some effect. So, you can say that BDS was responsible for 500 Palestinians losing their jobs when SodaStream moved.”

Birnbaum’s profession of concern for his former employees should be treated with skepticism.

Britain’s ban on the public boycott of goods from Israel’s occupied territories contradicts its own official business guidelines, documents have revealed.

The controversial new law, which would ban local councils, student unions and other public bodies from boycotting goods for political reasons, was announced by the government on Monday and has been implemented without parliamentary debate or vote.

However, documents first seen by the Independent show the Foreign Office’s Overseas Business Risk assessment for Israel states that the government does “not encourage or offer support” to business with the occupied territories, apparently contradicting the new regulation.

“Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impossible,” the document reads.

“There are therefore clear risks related to economic and financial activities in the settlements, and we do not encourage or offer support to such activity.”
Read more at www.rt.com

A senior Israeli rabbi says Tel Aviv should execute Palestinians instead of arresting them and “leave no one alive” in order to establish safety in the occupied Palestinian territories, Palestinian media report.

“Israeli army has to stop arresting Palestinians,” Shmuel Eliyahu said in a message posted on his Facebook page on Tuesday, adding, “but, it must execute them and leave no one alive,” Palestine News Network reported.

As chief rabbi of the city of Safed, Eliyahu is known for his racist behavior and remarks about Arabs and Muslims. He had earlier urged the Israeli regime to take “revenge” against Arabs in order to restore what he called Israel’s deterrence.

He also described Palestinians as the enemy of Israel and claimed that they “must be destroyed and crushed in order to end violence.”

“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million,” the Jerusalem Post quoted him as saying in 2007.
Read more at www.globalresearch.ca

The Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has unveiled plans to censor the Internet’s worldwide social media platforms with the building of an “international coalition” to counter criticism of Israel.

The legislation would have common features, such as defining what constitutes incitement and what the responsibilities of social networks regarding it are, a spokesman for the minister told the Israeli-based newspaper.

“Companies that do not comply will find themselves hauled into court, paying a penalty,” he added.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has met with representatives of YouTube and Google to discuss ways to cooperate in what she calls the fight against “inciting violence and terrorism”.

Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported yesterday that Hotovely agreed to work with Google and YouTube in order to establish a joint working mechanism to monitor and prevent the publication of “inflammatory material” originating in the Palestinian territories.

Since the latest escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israeli security services that erupted at the beginning of October, many people have been sharing videos depicting Israeli aggression towards Palestinians to highlight the Palestinian perspective of the conflict. London-based Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has expressed concerns that the meetings suggest moves towards censoring Palestinian material on the part of the Israeli state.
Article source www.middleeastmonitor.com

Today (24 Nov 2015) the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has launched a legal case against the Co-operative Bank on the grounds of discrimination. Last month, PSC’s account was closed by the Co-operative Bank which cited “the Bank’s risk appetite” for the closure and has refused to elaborate further. Another 20 organisations working for Palestine – including a number of PSC branches – have also had their accounts closed or denied. PSC and its legal team believe the decision is discriminatory and contravenes the Equality Act 2010. PSC has today initiated legal proceedings against the Bank. ITN solicitors, acting on behalf of PSC, state the Co-operative Bank’s “failure to provide any reasons for the closure of PSC’s account, which has been compounded by your failure to provide appropriate disclosure, leads to the conclusion that the decision to close the account is based on: Our client’s cogent belief in Palestinian rights, including the right to self-determination and the right of return, and to oppose Israel’s occupation and violations of international law. The nationality or religion of the Palestinian people.” Therefore the decision to close PSC’s account is “contrary to sections 13 and 29 of the [Equality] Act [2010]”.
Read more at www.palestinecampaign.org

The strong criticism of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians by the leader of the largest Jewish group in North America is a “wakeup call” to the Zionist regime, an American writer and political commentator says.

Marcy Winograd, who is based in Santa Monica, California, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday, after Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, slammed Israel’s “misguided policies” against the people of Palestine.

Speaking in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday, Rabbi Jacobs said the Jewish community must not remain silent when hate-crime attacks kill innocent Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Jacobs also said that the reform movement “has long opposed Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank.”
Read more at Press TV

Rabbi Rick Jacobs is president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of the Reform movement in North America which represents an about 1.5 million Reform Jews in almost 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada.

Changing the World

I search the internet for items that concern me and repost to share with others, I always put a link to the original website for continued reading. I also write my own posts when I want to share my feelings about our world.